{"id":5677,"date":"2024-06-08T06:04:34","date_gmt":"2024-06-08T13:04:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nathalielawhead.com\/candybox\/?p=5677"},"modified":"2024-06-08T06:04:58","modified_gmt":"2024-06-08T13:04:58","slug":"thinking-about-the-berlin-computerspiele-museum-computer-games-museum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.nathalielawhead.com\/candybox\/thinking-about-the-berlin-computerspiele-museum-computer-games-museum","title":{"rendered":"Thinking About The Berlin Computerspiele Museum (Computer Games Museum)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As I write this on my iPhone (oh god it\u2019s so hard to blog like this, nobody\u2019s fingers are this tiny o_O;), I have an 8 hour layover. I got plenty of time to think\u2026 Moments like this make me appreciate that I have a blog. There\u2019s only so much browsing airport duty free in Zurich one can take.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/nathalielawhead.com\/noodles\/gamemuseum\/IMG_7847.jpeg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>When I visited A MAZE a small personal side-quest I wanted to do for myself was to get my tongue pierced.<br \/>\nI talked myself out of it again (well, ok, credit where credit\u2019s due: I had help getting talked out of it too) because your tongue can swell and you have trouble talking sometimes, which is not an ideal thing to do if you also need to do public speaking. Nope (for now).<\/p>\n<p>I opted to get a marylin (or is it madonna??) instead. That\u2019s the very outer part of your upper lip to imitate a beauty mark\u2026 It can also swell like crazy but at least it doesn\u2019t inhibit speaking\u2026 long story short, I got another dream piercing during A MAZE this time! (Read my post \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nathalielawhead.com\/candybox\/the-story-of-my-first-a-maze-and-why-i-wish-we-had-an-event-dedicated-to-solo-devs\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The story of my first A MAZE (and why I wish we had an event dedicated to solo-devs)<\/a>\u201d)<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/bluesuburbia.com\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> BlueSuburbia <\/a> even won, so I feel like that justified getting it done even more.<\/p>\n<p>I was recommended this place called <a href=\"http:\/\/bodypiercingberlin.com\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bodypiercing Berlin<\/a> by my last piercer because they\u2019re APP certified.<br \/>\nBody piercing has been my quest to reclaim my body. A long hard quest full of a lot of physical healing (it\u2019s WORK to heal these many tiny annoying holes!), so I guess there\u2019s a metaphor in there too for emotional healing.<br \/>\nIt seems to work! Since getting the face ones I\u2019m able to look in the mirror again without feeling violently repulsed.<br \/>\nIt\u2019s those little things you have to do for yourself, and just for yourself. Even if you feel like the world decided you should die, you were thrown to the wolves by those you trusted, deserve what happened to you, or you\u2019re alone in it all\u2026 Don\u2019t let it stop you.<\/p>\n<p>Longer story short\u2026 after A MAZE I had to visit the piercer in Berlin again to get it downsized, and the final jewelry replaced. So I made it a small trip. Back to Berlin.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/nathalielawhead.com\/noodles\/gamemuseum\/IMG_7795.jpeg\" alt=\"\" \/><br \/>\n&#8211; <em>Me getting fully downsized with the jewelry change! It took over 3 weeks of babying.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Afterwards, while spending 5\u20267\u20268\u2026 hours walking through Berlin, exploring the city by foot because that\u2019s how you get to know a place\u2026 and making some jokes on social media about the texturing and bumpmapping in the city\u2026<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">you ever walk over cobblestone in an old city and catch urself thinking \u201cdamn that\u2019s some good tessellation\u2026\u201d before realizing \u201coh wait this is irl nvm ????\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/uTe2H0lQWN\">pic.twitter.com\/uTe2H0lQWN<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Nathalie Lawhead (@alienmelon) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/alienmelon\/status\/1798804135619240141?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 6, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\n&#8211; <em>Actually took a ton of these for references materials of old buildings. Not just a joke! Tho it is bizarre to see three or four different types of cobblestone and brick, like if you saw that in a game you\u2019d think the artist was all over the place.<\/em><br \/>\n&#8211; <em>Gargaj.umlaut.hu shared this link on BlueSky and I think it\u2019s a wonderful documentation of a phenomenon common in game art: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.realtimerendering.com\/realartifacts\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Real Artifacts<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cRendering is hard, partly because the real world doesn&#8217;t look as good as we think it does. We find real phenomena that resemble computer graphics artifacts amusing. Here are some real photographs that look like rendered images, sometimes because the photographer was trying to make it look synthetic, and sometimes because life can imitate the &#8220;art&#8221; of computer graphics.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.realtimerendering.com\/realartifacts\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Real Artifacts<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/nathalielawhead.com\/noodles\/gamemuseum\/IMG_7906.jpeg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Ok but that\u2019s all a tangent again\u2026 AS I WAS SAYING\u2026<\/p>\n<p>\u2026I spotted a place called the Computerspiele Museum on google maps while exploring. Seems perfect!<\/p>\n<p>I wasn\u2019t sure what to expect. I half thought it might be fanfare for the usual AAA assortments. The very established and lazy telling of history? A bunch of Nintendo??<br \/>\nWhat does computergame history look to people with enough money and resources to open a museum with such nice signage?<br \/>\nIf it\u2019s not hyper commercial fanfare, then is there even enough interest from a general audience to keep it going?<br \/>\nWhose history are we going to see?<br \/>\nSo many questions\u2026 Getting my answers was definitely worth the 11EU entry fee.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/nathalielawhead.com\/noodles\/gamemuseum\/IMG_7849.jpeg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I was truly blown away by this place.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s hard to describe the feeling of walking in on a whim and seeing a very careful, thoughtful, extremely detailed curation of videogame history\u2026 just all out on display AND most of it invites you to actually honest to god TOUCH and PLAY. It\u2019s not all glass barriers.<br \/>\nYou can touch the old things in this museum.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/nathalielawhead.com\/noodles\/gamemuseum\/IMG_7899.jpeg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Kids were running around, enthusiastically playing very old games from the 80s.<br \/>\nThere were a number of rooms themed around specific aspects of game history, like an actual arcade carefully set designed to look like a real arcade\u2026 Time capsules of precious lost teen eras. Thoughtful details of things like the ticket counter, and other neon relics decorated the walls. But in this reconstructed place you didn\u2019t have to feed the machines a constant stream of quarters to play, essentially making this a literal childhood fantasy arcade.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/nathalielawhead.com\/noodles\/gamemuseum\/IMG_7890.jpeg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>There was this beautiful thoughtfulness behind everything at the Computerspiele Museum.<br \/>\nIt\u2019s like someone listened to all these conversations about how to showcase games, how showcasing games outside of their intended context fails them, how we can\u2019t properly represent an old game because everything around playing the game informed the experience too\u2026 I can\u2019t really dig up all these old links because I\u2019m writing this off airport wifi on my phone, but i\u2019ll leave at least this one here since it\u2019s kind of in-line with what I\u2019m trying to say: \u2018More like an arcade\u2019 \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/pdfs.semanticscholar.org\/607d\/afe1723521ff701c53152d243a69511e0b63.pdf\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The limitations of playable games in museum exhibitions<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cOur results suggest that play as a way of engaging with games as museum objects has limitations which make it necessary to add other means of contextualization in order to afford critical engagement with digital games as<br \/>\ncultural heritage.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/pdfs.semanticscholar.org\/607d\/afe1723521ff701c53152d243a69511e0b63.pdf\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read the pdf<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/nathalielawhead.com\/noodles\/gamemuseum\/IMG_7892.jpeg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>For example (my thoughts), you can\u2019t just show an old pixel art game on a modern TV. Pixel art grew out of a necessity to show this type of art on very limited displays and it looked very different on those displays, as compared to the hyper crisp spinoff of pixel art we have today. Resolutions on old screens made the art the type of experience it was too\u2026 So even if we preserve these old games, we need to preserve the hardware, input devices, screens&#8230; Otherwise you can\u2019t experience them exactly the way they were once played. You don\u2019t see them the way they were. Little by little, technological progress erodes that history and, in a way, alienates a game from its intended experience.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/nathalielawhead.com\/noodles\/gamemuseum\/IMG_7861.jpeg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>All that said, it was SO FUCKING INCREDIBLE to see that they had entire miniature rooms dedicated to very carefully replicating where and how you would find a certain game. For example, a teenager\u2019s room in the 80\u2019s: posters of Kurt Russel and Karate Kid on the wall\u2026 and there was a game system, playable on an old screen\u2026 To make all this more beautiful these \u201csets\u201d were not off limit. You could walk into a time capsule of a bedroom, office, living room\u2026 and actually play the game while sitting on that couch, exactly how you always would have played them.<\/p>\n<p>There was something precious about seeing kids that had no nostalgic connection to these things, just playing and enjoying it all.<br \/>\nIn all these exhibition spaces was curated writing informing the museum goers about the history of each game.<br \/>\nComputerspiele Museum offered everything.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/nathalielawhead.com\/noodles\/gamemuseum\/IMG_7879.jpeg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I was ready to get petty again when I saw the area dedicated to indie games. How would that be handled? Please no \u201cindie game the movie\u201d\u2026  it gets brought up too often. There\u2019s more than that mysery\u2026<\/p>\n<p>The way history of indiegames was handled was by guiding the visitor through the actual historic evolution from 80\u2019s programming books (where people distributed games on floppy discs, etc\u2026), to the change of scope of bigger teams, back to how tech and tools empowers individual creators again. I paraphrase heavily tho. It was informed.<br \/>\nThere were a lot of quotes from writers, critics, devs, meaningfully represented around videos playing in artistic block displays.<br \/>\nThis place understands games. It even got into indie events and arthouse games\u2026<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/nathalielawhead.com\/noodles\/gamemuseum\/IMG_7884.jpeg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a wonderful thing to feel seen like this.<\/p>\n<p>I think what really topped off the experience for me was, as I was leaving, I walked past a kid crying that she really wanted to visit the museum, as the mom was kinda on the fence about it.<br \/>\nYou know you\u2019re doing good if kids like it. Enough to beg even. That\u2019s inspiring an entire new generation to appreciate games, and even their history.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019d vent often about how gamer culture is completely alienated from appreciating games in such a manner. A manner in which we can have a long established history. You\u2019ll maybe encounter (insert favorite set of AAA games) passed off in arguments of historic relevance, but game history and appreciating games, is a lot bigger than their commercial sector.<br \/>\nProgramming things from your bedroom, and sharing that on floppy disks, is very much at the core of this story too.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/nathalielawhead.com\/noodles\/gamemuseum\/IMG_7869.jpeg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I took so many pictures. Pictures eventually turned into note taking. There was a lot I forgot about. Rediscovered. Learned about. Appreciated too!<br \/>\nAnother favorite of mine was the old console exhibit where you could pick up cards and read about each.<br \/>\nI\u2019d totally forgotten about the first game industry crash. This place talked about that in a few places, and how it changed the direction games took.<br \/>\nAs an introspective experience, It gave me plenty to think about. How would things look different? How would games have ended up if it wasn\u2019t for the people that persisted in spite of crashes, and the reality of greedy money making decisions often crushing innovation?<br \/>\nContextualization seems like such an important topic now.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/nathalielawhead.com\/noodles\/gamemuseum\/IMG_7866.jpeg\" alt=\"\" \/><br \/>\n<em>&#8211; They had a Painstation!!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Showcasing games at events is hard work. Every developer will tell you that.<br \/>\nSome games will thrive in certain contexts and only at certain events. Then nobody will care outside of that. Local multiplayer games do very well (for example) in public settings, but will struggle when released. Things I\u2019ve made would often get sarcastic comments like \u201cwhy is this here??\u201d and then find a wonderful healthy playerbase outside of the event. Games dependent on music as their primary creative hook (often) don\u2019t do good at all on those noisy showfloors where you can\u2019t hear anything. It\u2019s rough for developers showing things not standard enough for established commercial contexts\u2026 When it comes to video games, context is everything, especially when you play them.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.computerspielemuseum.de\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Computerspiele Museum<\/a> is a place that really gets it.<br \/>\nI know little about it other than coming away with the impression that this was done by people who really truly care about representing video games.<br \/>\nI\u2019ll be thinking about this place for a long time. It has set the standard through the roof for me.<\/p>\n<p>Ok\u2026 so I said I took a lot of pictures. I\u2019ll end this post with those.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/nathalielawhead.com\/noodles\/gamemuseum\/IMG_7902.jpeg\" alt=\"\" \/><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/nathalielawhead.com\/noodles\/gamemuseum\/IMG_7888.jpeg\" alt=\"\" \/><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/nathalielawhead.com\/noodles\/gamemuseum\/IMG_7875.jpeg\" alt=\"\" \/><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/nathalielawhead.com\/noodles\/gamemuseum\/IMG_7873.jpeg\" alt=\"\" \/><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/nathalielawhead.com\/noodles\/gamemuseum\/IMG_7851.jpeg\" alt=\"\" \/><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/nathalielawhead.com\/noodles\/gamemuseum\/IMG_7856.jpeg\" alt=\"\" \/><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/nathalielawhead.com\/noodles\/gamemuseum\/IMG_7857.jpeg\" alt=\"\" \/><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/nathalielawhead.com\/noodles\/gamemuseum\/IMG_7858.jpeg\" alt=\"\" \/><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/nathalielawhead.com\/noodles\/gamemuseum\/IMG_7860.jpeg\" alt=\"\" \/><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/nathalielawhead.com\/noodles\/gamemuseum\/IMG_7863.jpeg\" alt=\"\" \/><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/nathalielawhead.com\/noodles\/gamemuseum\/IMG_7870.jpeg\" alt=\"\" \/><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/nathalielawhead.com\/noodles\/gamemuseum\/IMG_7871.jpeg\" alt=\"\" \/><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/nathalielawhead.com\/noodles\/gamemuseum\/IMG_7894.jpeg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re in Berlin you definitely need to check if out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As I write this on my iPhone (oh god it\u2019s so hard to blog like this, nobody\u2019s fingers are this tiny o_O;), I have an 8 hour layover. I got plenty of time to think\u2026 Moments like this make me appreciate that I have a blog. There\u2019s only so much browsing airport duty free in Zurich one can take. When I visited A MAZE a small personal side-quest I wanted to do for myself was to get my tongue pierced. I talked myself out of it again (well, ok, credit where credit\u2019s due: I had help getting talked out of&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5678,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"http:\/\/nathalielawhead.com\/noodles\/gamemuseum\/IMG_7847.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"Thinking About The Berlin Computerspiele Museum (Computer Games Museum)","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[30,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-games","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nathalielawhead.com\/candybox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nathalielawhead.com\/candybox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nathalielawhead.com\/candybox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nathalielawhead.com\/candybox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nathalielawhead.com\/candybox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5677"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.nathalielawhead.com\/candybox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5682,"href":"http:\/\/www.nathalielawhead.com\/candybox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5677\/revisions\/5682"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nathalielawhead.com\/candybox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nathalielawhead.com\/candybox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nathalielawhead.com\/candybox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nathalielawhead.com\/candybox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}